Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Boneyard/Blank page 099

This isn't a commentary

The tone on this report seems way off; more professionalism would be beneficial. --Rschen7754 07:05, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Which bit? The pony stuff? That's there for fun. The rest is pretty dry. I'll try moving the pony bit to the end and give it its own section.--Surturz (talk) 07:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"Apparently there aren't many cheap bronies at the administrator's noticeboard because the unban request was refused." The header about drama was bad; glad to see it's gone. --Rschen7754 07:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

This image is was hyperobvious copyright violation Bulwersator (talk) 09:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC) + s tag Bulwersator (talk) 09:57, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I've made two changes, most importantly, exposing when Sturturz failed to disclose further personal involvement. I did not change the statement of personal involvement where Sturturz conveniently left that part out. I would suggest that whole sentence about Sturturz asking about my recall be struck as Signpost should not be a platform for Sturturz to further his/her personal agenda and Sturturz was the only editor pushing that aspect of the incident. Toddst1 (talk) 14:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

See below. Thanks, Skomorokh 20:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Rs. Why is Signpost being dragged down to the level of ANI's worst? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

See below. Thanks, Skomorokh 20:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

And finally

Someone should read the GNAA press release before making a complete fool of themselves. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 07:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Overtaken by events too

MSK was re-re-blocked. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 08:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

My assumption is that this article is designed to inform editors that aren't following the discussion boards, so I feel being a a week or two out of date is okay. The wheel warring on MSK's block status will have to wait until next issue, I've read about as much dramah as I can handle for one week :-) --Surturz (talk) 16:39, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Overtaken by events three (ah, ah, ah)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Reblock of User:Mistress Selina Kyle. pablo 11:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Holy cow

Wow, I just removed one irrelevant fact earlier, but looking at this page as a whole, it looks like it needs a restart.

• One person asking an administrator whether or not he's available for recall, on the admin's talk page, is hardly an "administrator discussion". Nobody in the community discussion appears to have raised that point; therefore I would say this is undue weight given to the Signpost reporter's own interactions.
• The last sentence in the report about Fluttershy is gratuitous and inappropriate. The unblock was declined, and that is all that needs to be said about it. Let's not spread the problems of the admin noticeboards to Signpost.
• The explanation of right to vanish is wrong. Right to vanish is the opportunity for a user to completely and permanently withdraw from the project with no right of return, and renaming is only one small part of it. If one is going to refer to discussions about it, please include the one happening at the Bureaucrat noticeboard and multiple other venues.

Looking forward to these issues being fixed before publication. Risker (talk) 14:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Risker. Toddst1 (talk) 14:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• The Fluttershy item needs to just go, IMHO. It's managed to somehow be both inappropriate poking and simultaneously feeding the trolling. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• I tend to agree with you, Floquenbeam. I'm also noticing that the link to my edit to the page is wrong (it should be this), and that the incorrect definition of RTV/courtesy vanishing remains in the article. More importantly, I'm concerned about Surturz claiming that what is supposedly a factual Signpost report is an appropriate place for him exercise his right as an individual editor to criticize an administrator.[1] It seems he may have confused opinion pieces with reportage pieces. I do hope the Signpost editor will help him to understand the difference. Risker (talk) 15:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• I see the link and the definition have now been corrected. Well, sort of. Why not just simply link to the edit rather than linking to a reference that links to the edit? Risker (talk) 15:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• To be honest I was a bit hot under the collar because Toddst1 swore at me, so I quoted WP:ADMINACCT to remind him to be civil, and unafraid of scrutiny. As for the refs, it allows internal wikilinks, but I guess URL diffs isn't very different. I'll leave it to the copyeditor to decide. --Surturz (talk) 16:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, writing a biased signpost article can motivate people to swear: [2] [3] I'm glad the discussion has led to a much more reasonable account. Thanks to all involved. Toddst1 (talk) 17:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Please see below. Skomorokh 20:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Note from the editor

Thanks to all who have contributed or commented thus far, and apologies to those of you who may have taken umbrage at the preliminary content. I'd make three points that I would like to see observed:

• As prominently advertised in the header template, this is a draft newspaper article, not a finished report or a community discussion page. While constructive input is always welcomed, and occasionally content that is an affront to Wikipedia policy must be dealt with directly, the editors are not indulgent of adversarial editing.
• The discussion report is an irregular feature here at the Signpost, and as yet lacks a settled upon format or register. It's also Surturz's second week at the Discussion desk, so I would ask that readers would be understanding of the exploratory nature of the exercise.
• Every article is independently reviewed for appropriateness, veracity, tone, and similar considerations before publication. The ultimate responsibility for the newspaper lies with the editors, and we take that quite seriously.

I appreciate your consideration and patience; all constructive suggestions of best practices for the report are most welcome. Skomorokh 20:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I am quite unhappy about the removal of Toddst1 and Risker's names from the article. What started as a piece noting the conflict between an Administrator and an Arbitrator has now become a public shaming of non-admin Baseball Bugs. Taken with my declaration of interest, it now looks like an attack piece from me against Baseball Bugs. This was never my intention and if any name should be obfuscated in the piece, it should be Bugs' - he was just there for context. We are allowed to scrutinise admins as per the spirit of WP:ADMINACCT, and we should not kowtow to Admin and Arb pressure to remove their names. Why are Risker and Toddst1 so scared of scrutiny? I do not want my username associated with the "administrator report" section in its current form. --Surturz (talk) 23:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Surturz, I'm not afraid of scrutiny; believe me, I get more scrutiny than just about anyone around here. For me, though, it was really important that it be clear that I made this block as one of hundreds of administrators, and it had nothing to do with the fact that I am also an arbitrator. When I make blocks wearing my "arbitrator" hat, they're always clearly marked as being in my role as an arbitrator, and the appeal is only to the Arbitration Committee, which is also clearly indicated in the block message. (The same is true when I block in my role as a checkuser; those blocks are marked with {{checkuser}} flags.) None of those factors was in place in the block on Bugs. Please keep in mind that, while Toddst1 and I may not have agreed on block length, Toddst1 was the first person to support the concept of topic-banning Baseball Bugs from the admin noticeboards during the post-unblock discussion; the admin/arb angle isn't really the big picture here.

The block on Baseball Bugs triggered some serious discussion about appropriate user behaviour on AN and ANI; if you wanted to turn this to a "bigger picture" story, perhaps that might be a good place to focus. Risker (talk) 23:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's quite understandable, and not to worry – we are quite a ways from submission deadline yet.

You're quite right that we are allowed to scrutinise admin/functionary behaviour, but the primary purpose of the Discussion report is to summarise the discussions, not to interrogate the participants. I didn't remove the administrators' names because of pressure or intimidation (I'd like to see anyone try), I removed them because I think personalising the Discussion report tends to instigate drama and detract from the informational intent of the article.

As I see it, and I'm very open to disagreement on this point, the issue at hand isn't who did what to whom, but what was done and what's to be done about it. What is of interest to the Discussion report here are the dynamics of blocking and unblocking, and the conversations and reviews that surround that. We should be able to describe them in an impartial, depersonalised and still compelling manner.

The standing practice has been for Signpost reporters to avoid covering stories they have taken sides in, so if you're not comfortable with either the editorial constraints or your disinterest in the story at hand, we can find another reporter for that particular item. Alternatively, a reframing or refocusing of the story could work just as well. Very open to ideas on all the above. Skomorokh 23:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Surturz, you clearly have a WP:POLEMIC agenda and probably shouldn't be commenting on admin actions for Signpost. See User:Surturz/AdminWatch. Toddst1 (talk) 23:54, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Aren't arbitrators and other editors in high profile positions, or whose actions are high profile, in some sense public persons? Doesn't it help the community to become familiar with high profile names? It's very difficult to figure out who is what when names are not used. I'm hoping the Signpost will serve in an educative capacity for the community—like newspapers mention the names of elective or important appointive offices to allow the community to become familiar with the names of these persons. How will we ever learn who the editors are who are influencing our lives. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:07, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Toddst1 has now MfD'd one of my userspace pages in retaliation. That's it - I'm intimidated. Someone else can hold Risker and Toddst1 to account today - I've been as transparent and accomodating as possible and if I continue I'm just going to get snarky and punished for violating WP:CIVIL. Please remove my username from the byline. --Surturz (talk) 00:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Especially with time-sensitive sections such as this one, it's generally best to leave off on writing it until a day or two before the newspaper comes out—avoid this rabble of changing situations and the like. ResMar 02:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not clear what you're advocating here: Are you saying, write it just before the article comes out so that folks don't have an opportunity to comment? Toddst1 (talk) 03:42, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

No, I mean that, seeing what's happened here, these situations are especially volatile, since they demand quick resolution. You can write about some initiative or other, and it doesn't really change much; but discussions by their nature trend towards resolution, so it's best to present a static picture that's current as of press, something that cannot be achieved three days prior—as evidenced by this here peanut gallery. ResMar 23:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Removal of an important issue

Hi, you wanted me to comment on the debacle, but of course you have now removed all reference to the events. Snce you asked for to comment, I will, I think you should cover that stuff because it's important, and there are major discussions going on now that would be a step towards giving Wikipedia a chance at fighting back against the corrosive nature of internet culture/human nature, I just made a post listing the 3/4 different threads of discussion that have been going on here:

User talk:Jimbo_Wales#Exodus_of_top_editors_from_Wikipedia

I hope that helps maybe --Mistress Selina Kyle ^{(Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉)} 02:37, 11 February 2012 (UTC)